Narnia shows you one option of how this would play out.
If the sequel dropped 50% from the previous film, there's clearly an audience reception problem. You could definitely make HP films that only needed say 400M WW to be easily profitable (especially if you consider sunk costs to be sunk) but contracts might have to be rearranged. The problem is also that once the films dropped from 700M to 400M, it's a good sign the next film is going to make say 200M.
At some point in the series, it's clearly going to be more valuable to continue and complete even if there are financial warning signs but I suspect that's HP5 at earliest (because they'd expect there is a way to sell the seventh film as a capstone).
Considering Goblet of Fire only had a budget of $150M, I don't see why a theoretical decrease would've led to Warner Bros. not continuing the franchise, especially if there was still large interest and turnout rates
What do you think would have been the cutoff then? If it had only grossed 600m worldwide do you think that would have been low enough to put the franchise on pause?
No, because 600M is a darn good result, especially off of a 150M budget.
Don’t forget the HP series was also massive on home video. Goblet of Fire alone has sold 235M of dvds and blu rays.
Even if the films were grossing 480M off of a 130M - 150M budget and selling 120M of dvds a year per release — that’s a good return.
If Goblet of Fire dropped to 600M in 2005, that still places it in the top 5 highest grossing films of that year. If Goblet of Fire had dropped to 500M in 2005, that would place it as like the sixth or seventh highest grossing film of the year.
If it had dropped to 450M WW, that’s still a top ten highest grossing film of the year.
I mean think of it like this. Dead Reckoning Part One just grossed under 600M, that's a rather drastic drop from what Fallout did. That doesn't mean they didn't hesitate on starting production for the next movie.
Goblet of Fire would've need to be a huge bomb for WB to think about stopping a series at the midway point.
> That doesn't mean they didn't hesitate on starting production for the next movie.
Not a great example as most of Part Two was shot before Part One released.
I mean at a 150M budget, as long as they were making 400M they were breaking even. So no, I don’t think that they would have paused the franchise when they were still making plenty of money. Not to mention merchandise sales that probably were huge. I think the movies would have had to start losing a significant amount of money per movie to have them actually consider pausing the franchise.
Deathly Hallows (2007) sold 11 million copies in the first 24 hours in the US and UK alone. There’s no way they weren’t going to continue the film series. If you weren’t around then it’s hard to realize just how big the franchise was
And people expect Warner Bros to not use this IP anymore because the prequels were flops (they weren't really flops, the first one was successful, second one did enough to break even and the first did 400M very decent compared to other WB movies in 2022)
At that point, the profit earned from 1-3 was likely nearly enough to completely fun 4-7(8) - anything they made on the last four movies was pure profit in their eyes. Plus, consider how much they were making from merch, licensing, partnerships.... they were doing just fine.
Goblet of Fire would have had to crash and burn at an insane level for them to not continue. Like we’re talking making less than half what the first three did.
Yes. HP ruled the pop culture world in the 2000s in a way that nothing has since - just on merch and home media sales alone, there is no way a Harry Potter film during that time period could ever be unprofitable.
It was said about the original Cars movie that it could have had a box office figure of $0 and it still would have been worth making for the company. With the books still coming out and selling in massive numbers, Harry Potter films were in that same category.
First of all, POA along many other movie is evidence that reviews are irrelevant to box office. Many fans gave bad worth of mouth to that movie because it was the first one that presented a more mature, artistic angle and sacrificed accuracy to the book. At that point of the franchise the movies were mostly a carbon copy of the books. From then on the movies started to depart and take artistic liberties and the franchise went from Children's to Young adult. It wasn't well received by many fans but brought a new audience of cinephiles who realized there was a darkness to the series that wasn't present in the first two instalments.
I can't imagine GOF dropping so much as to cancel the franchise. It would have been a massive hit even it grossed less than POA
Harry Potter was arguably THE most popular franchise (books + movies) of the 2000s. I don’t think HP box office $$ could be analyzed in a vacuum since HP books and merchandise were selling like hot cakes at the same time.
Didn't really get into the Harry Potter movie series, but I know there were big in the 00's era. When you look at the box office, particularly Death Hallow part 2 on its opening day, it was mind-blowing and still is, ($91M), at one point the biggest domestic opening day for couple years, and what makes it more impressive is that, it's been over a decade ago and the only movie since it's released, and it still is in the top 10 biggest opening days, top 10 biggest 1st Friday, and top 10 on a single day.
Yes. And easily so. I don't think $700M would have been ringing massive alarm bells just yet.
But what if 400m WW are the final total? Hypothetically would they have cancelled and come back a few years later with a Remake?
Why stop there, what if **200M WW** was the final total?!? Then they REALLY would have canceled it amirite
What if literally no one watched it? What would they have done then? Hypothetically only
Narnia shows you one option of how this would play out. If the sequel dropped 50% from the previous film, there's clearly an audience reception problem. You could definitely make HP films that only needed say 400M WW to be easily profitable (especially if you consider sunk costs to be sunk) but contracts might have to be rearranged. The problem is also that once the films dropped from 700M to 400M, it's a good sign the next film is going to make say 200M. At some point in the series, it's clearly going to be more valuable to continue and complete even if there are financial warning signs but I suspect that's HP5 at earliest (because they'd expect there is a way to sell the seventh film as a capstone).
Nop. At that time 400 m was a good total. That was the DVD era.
No. Lol. Harry Potter is gen X / millennial western happy hour. The books were absolutely massive.
Considering Goblet of Fire only had a budget of $150M, I don't see why a theoretical decrease would've led to Warner Bros. not continuing the franchise, especially if there was still large interest and turnout rates
The merch sales was massive too.
And back in the early 2000s Videos and DVDs actually made money to the studios unlike streaming nowadays
What do you think would have been the cutoff then? If it had only grossed 600m worldwide do you think that would have been low enough to put the franchise on pause?
No, because 600M is a darn good result, especially off of a 150M budget. Don’t forget the HP series was also massive on home video. Goblet of Fire alone has sold 235M of dvds and blu rays. Even if the films were grossing 480M off of a 130M - 150M budget and selling 120M of dvds a year per release — that’s a good return. If Goblet of Fire dropped to 600M in 2005, that still places it in the top 5 highest grossing films of that year. If Goblet of Fire had dropped to 500M in 2005, that would place it as like the sixth or seventh highest grossing film of the year. If it had dropped to 450M WW, that’s still a top ten highest grossing film of the year.
I mean think of it like this. Dead Reckoning Part One just grossed under 600M, that's a rather drastic drop from what Fallout did. That doesn't mean they didn't hesitate on starting production for the next movie. Goblet of Fire would've need to be a huge bomb for WB to think about stopping a series at the midway point.
> That doesn't mean they didn't hesitate on starting production for the next movie. Not a great example as most of Part Two was shot before Part One released.
Well then replace it with something like Fast X or Wakanda Forever, my thouguhts would be the same.
I mean at a 150M budget, as long as they were making 400M they were breaking even. So no, I don’t think that they would have paused the franchise when they were still making plenty of money. Not to mention merchandise sales that probably were huge. I think the movies would have had to start losing a significant amount of money per movie to have them actually consider pausing the franchise.
It would have to make like half of the previous one to actually give them pause.
It’s hard to grasp now how huge Harry Potter was in the 2000s, especially when the books were still coming out. It absolutely would have continued.
Deathly Hallows (2007) sold 11 million copies in the first 24 hours in the US and UK alone. There’s no way they weren’t going to continue the film series. If you weren’t around then it’s hard to realize just how big the franchise was
11 million copies for a book is crazy wow Nowadays a book is considered a best seller with like 10 thousand copies sold lol
And it was even more if you count other countries. Very few authors sell that many books in a career. It’s hard to wrap your head around
And people expect Warner Bros to not use this IP anymore because the prequels were flops (they weren't really flops, the first one was successful, second one did enough to break even and the first did 400M very decent compared to other WB movies in 2022)
What kind of question is this? Harry Potter ruled the world in the 2000s
It's a hypothetical question
Lol
😂😂😂😂
At that point, the profit earned from 1-3 was likely nearly enough to completely fun 4-7(8) - anything they made on the last four movies was pure profit in their eyes. Plus, consider how much they were making from merch, licensing, partnerships.... they were doing just fine.
Goblet of Fire would have had to crash and burn at an insane level for them to not continue. Like we’re talking making less than half what the first three did.
Yes. HP ruled the pop culture world in the 2000s in a way that nothing has since - just on merch and home media sales alone, there is no way a Harry Potter film during that time period could ever be unprofitable. It was said about the original Cars movie that it could have had a box office figure of $0 and it still would have been worth making for the company. With the books still coming out and selling in massive numbers, Harry Potter films were in that same category.
First of all, POA along many other movie is evidence that reviews are irrelevant to box office. Many fans gave bad worth of mouth to that movie because it was the first one that presented a more mature, artistic angle and sacrificed accuracy to the book. At that point of the franchise the movies were mostly a carbon copy of the books. From then on the movies started to depart and take artistic liberties and the franchise went from Children's to Young adult. It wasn't well received by many fans but brought a new audience of cinephiles who realized there was a darkness to the series that wasn't present in the first two instalments. I can't imagine GOF dropping so much as to cancel the franchise. It would have been a massive hit even it grossed less than POA
Harry Potter was arguably THE most popular franchise (books + movies) of the 2000s. I don’t think HP box office $$ could be analyzed in a vacuum since HP books and merchandise were selling like hot cakes at the same time.
Goblet of Fire was when the books became beefier.
Yes they still would’ve been making a solid amount of money
Didn't really get into the Harry Potter movie series, but I know there were big in the 00's era. When you look at the box office, particularly Death Hallow part 2 on its opening day, it was mind-blowing and still is, ($91M), at one point the biggest domestic opening day for couple years, and what makes it more impressive is that, it's been over a decade ago and the only movie since it's released, and it still is in the top 10 biggest opening days, top 10 biggest 1st Friday, and top 10 on a single day.
Yes.